


Counting the Days

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Primeval
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Injured Ryan, M/M, Sometimes words are good too, Stephen has good friends, Team as Family, actions speak louder than words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 05:36:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7301596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Ryan is injured by the future predator, Stephen looks back over their time together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting the Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fredbassett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/gifts).



> Written for fredbassett who gave the prompt “I'm here if you need me.” 
> 
> Originally posted to Livejournal in 2012.

“I'm here if you need me.”

The words curled themselves around Stephen, but they only left him cold. The warm hand on his shoulder stayed there for so long that he was no longer sure whether he had actually heard the words, or if they'd just been pressed into him. But they felt like a curse as much as a gift.

Chilled to the bone, he said nothing and finally the hand and its owner moved away. Stephen only had eyes for the man lying in the bed. Eyes closed, body still, he already looked like death had taken him though Stephen had seen for himself how Ryan had fought to live. He wasn't going to let anyone take him down, and certainly not any kind of future predator.

There was nothing he could do and he felt too powerless to move. He kept replaying it in his mind, the way Cutter had dragged Ryan's bleeding body through the anomaly, shouting for help. How Helen had poked her head through, sneered in their general direction and then disappeared again with Lester shouting at the soldier's to go after her, but all of them ignoring him in favour of helping their Captain.

He'd gone numb then, barely able to move himself until Abby had shoved him into the Range Rover so they could follow the one carrying Ryan to hospital. He didn't think he'd said a single word since that moment.

All he'd done was stare at Ryan's bed, silently praying to a God he didn't believe in to save the man he loved. The man he'd never had the courage to confide his feelings for. Sex was easy, but love was hard and Stephen had never quite allowed himself to cross the line from one to the other.

Ryan had changed all that.

He hadn't even done anything in particular. Just been his usual self, a steady rock when Stephen was full of self-doubt, a dependable man who Stephen knew would never cheat on him, would never lie to him.

And now he could lose all that.

“You need to sleep, Stephen,” Abby said. She sat down next to him, her legs pressing against his. Stephen shivered, aware suddenly of how cold he was.

Abby sighed and went off, returning a little later with a blanket which she draped around Stephen's shoulders and a steaming cup of tea.

“It's the proper stuff, I scrounged it off one of the nurses,” Abby explained, as she pushed the cup into Stephen's hands and kept holding it there until Stephen's long fingers curled around it.

“I'm fine,” Stephen said. He looked surprised at the hoarseness of his voice. “I’ll be fine,” he tried again.

“Ryan's tough, he'll pull through. You'll see.”

Stephen allowed himself a small smile at Abby's confidence. He didn't know what he'd do without Ryan.

> _
> 
> ”Coming out with the lads, tonight, Hart?” Ryan had asked, leaning a little too casually on the hood of the car. Stephen should have recognised it for the trap it was, but he didn’t realise his heart had been ensnared until much later.
> 
> “Sure,” Stephen had replied. “I'd love to.”
> 
> It was done so expertly that Stephen hadn't even realised that the “lads” had all vanished after one pint until Ryan was dropping to his knees in Stephen's flat. In fact, he didn't really remember much else after that, until he was being fed a wonderful fry-up, and Ryan was acting like everything was perfectly normal.
> 
> _

“We've had so little time together,” Stephen said. “I didn't even - I'd never...” He stopped, choking back the words. He couldn't think about what might happen if Ryan didn't pull through.

Abby put her arms around him. “He loves you. And he knows you’re waiting for him. He's got everything to live for.”

Stephen nodded and Abby let him go, pushing his mug up so that Stephen took a drink.

“I'm here for you, you know,” Abby said after a moment, echoing Cutter's earlier words.

Stephen only shivered, as if someone was trampling all over his grave.

* * * * * *

“You know, if you need, anything. A change of clothes, or you know, not mine obviously, I doubt they'd fit...”

“Connor, sit down,” Stephen said.

“Right.” Connor stopped his hovering and sat in the chair opposite Stephen. He then turned it slightly so that he could better see the door into the operating theatre. He wasn't sure whether it was good or not that Ryan had been in there so long already, or that this was his third operation. No one seemed to be panicking, but then they wouldn't would they?

“What time is it?” Stephen asked. His own watch was broken, somehow. He hadn't really noticed, perhaps to do with the future predator? It was all so hard to keep track of.

“Um, 5. In the morning,” Connor said.

“Is that all?” Stephen asked. “Feels like I've been here for days.”

Connor looked sadly at his shoes. Unsure what else to say. “I'm here for you, though, if you need me,” he said. He didn't notice Stephen's startled expression, eyes still intent on his shoe laces – one of them was coming undone and trailing along the linoleum.

> _
> 
> “Tom! Tom, stop it!” Stephen squealed, blushing furiously at how high-pitched his voice went.
> 
> “Hadn't realised you were so ticklish,” Ryan laughed, his face lighting up as he sank back into the bed.
> 
> “Yeah, well,” Stephen said, embarrassed.
> 
> Ryan twined his fingers with Stephen's and pulled him close again, so that Stephen's head was resting on Ryan’s chest. “Lots of things I don't know about you,” Ryan mused. “Lots of things you don't know about me.”
> 
> Stephen shrugged. “Nothing to know. Nothing I need to know.”
> 
> Ryan hummed, neither agreement nor disagreement.
> 
> “This thing, whatever it is, I want you to know I'm always here for you. Whatever you need.” Ryan waited to see if Stephen would say anything, but when he didn't he just chalked it down to one of those things Stephen didn't know how to deal with. 
> 
> _

Connor stood up when the doctor came over to talk to them, and Stephen slowly followed his example; it was obvious his mind had been elsewhere.

“And?” Connor asked once it became clear that Stephen wasn't going to say anything.

“Captain Ryan has a long way to go, of course. He's going to need a lot of physiotherapy, some more operations, he certainly isn’t completely out of harm's way. But, I'd say he was very lucky. Very lucky indeed. We managed to save his leg and there's nothing that a lot of hard work won't fix.” The doctor beamed at them.

“Thank you,” Connor said, as Stephen still stood stock still.

The doctor nodded, and with only a quick glance at Stephen, she went on her way.

“Stephen? Stephen did you hear what he said?”

“Yes,” Stephen said. Then he crumpled down to the floor.

* * * * *

Claudia was taking his pulse when Stephen came round.

“You're a medic too now are you?” Stephen asked.

“If Cutter can check _me_ over, I can certainly check you over,” she replied with a smile. “Besides, the doctor says you were just exhausted, which none of us needed a medical degree to tell us.”

Stephen shifted uneasily under her gaze. “I'm sorry.”

“Good. Now, there's some food with your name on it in the canteen, so I'll be back in a minute. Don't move.”

“What about Ryan?” Stephen asked before Claudia had had the chance to leave.

“Still sleeping.” She smiled down at him and brushed a stray strand of hair off his forehead. “I'm here if you need to talk.” She then surprised Stephen by planting a kiss on his cheek, before quickly leaving the room.

* * * * *

While Stephen was waiting he stared up at the ceiling tiles, idly counting them before he decided that he wasn't that bored. And perhaps he should face the demons that had been haunting him all day. Cutter had started it, and then the others, one by one repeating the same stock phrase. He knew they meant it, that they really were his friends, and they really did want to support him. But he found it so hard to trust those words. Found it so hard to trust.

__

> ”I'm here if you need me,” Stephen found himself saying, “whatever it is you need.”
> 
> Helen looked over at him as she buttoned up her shirt. Her hair was still mussed, her trousers lying sprawled on the floor, faint bruises on her wrists where she'd demanded Stephen stopped acting like a child and took her like a man.
> 
> “Thank you, Stephen. I may very well take you up on that.”

It was the first sign that not everything was as it should be, but Stephen had been too blinded to see it. And then when Helen had used those words against him, twisted them like a knife inside his heart, he'd vowed never to need or be needed again. Not like that.

* * * * *

Ryan was the strongest man Stephen had ever met. Not in physical strength, though he could certainly hold his own, but mentally. Nothing seemed to phase him – he'd taken to dinosaurs and scientists and Home Office interference like a duck to water. And nothing Stephen did, or more importantly, didn't do, had any apparent effect on the way he felt about Stephen.

Stephen couldn't understand it. In fact he'd spent the last hour failing to understand it. But eventually he'd come to the conclusion that Ryan really, honestly did love him.

And he wasn't at all sure how he felt about that.

* * * * *

“How are you feeling?” Ryan asked Stephen, the first time Stephen came to visit him. Stephen boggled a little.

“I'm supposed to be the one asking you that,” he said, sitting gingerly down in the chair next to Ryan's bed. “You look terrible.”

Ryan smiled. “So do you. Guess we make a pretty good pair then, huh?”

“Yes,” Stephen said slowly, returning the smile. “I think we do.”

Ryan stared at Stephen a little longer than normal, trying to work out what had changed while he'd been unconscious. There was definitely something different about Stephen. Stephen just smiled back at him, then put his hand over Ryan's and laced their fingers together.

“I'm here if you need me,” Stephen said, banishing any thoughts of Helen into the past, where they belonged. “And even if you don't.”

“Oh, Stephen,” Ryan said, “believe me, I always will.”

Then he tugged at Stephen's hand until Stephen was gently kissing him, the words they didn’t say far more powerful than those they did. Just as it had always been.


End file.
